“I can’t sue him over everything:” Rand Paul sues NSA and rips Obama over executive power

One lawsuit doesn’t tell the full story of the Obama administration’s “lawlessness,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) argued Wednesday evening.

Paul appeared on “Hannity” to discuss the class action he filed against the National Security Agency over its data collection practices, which he described as “historic” in scope. But Sean Hannity pressed Paul on the administration’s other far-reaching uses of executive power — namely, its end-runs around Congress — and Paul agreed that they, too, constituted unlawful activity.

“I think it’s illegal, unconstitutional,” Paul said of the president “essentially doing legislation” from the executive branch. “And so it is important that we stop him. So I’m suing over the NSA — I can’t sue him over everything unconstitutional that he’s doing, but we hope somebody else will.”

Paul added that reining in the president over his past executive actions and promised “Year of Action” shouldn’t be a matter of party politics.

“This shouldn’t be a partisan issue. There should be Democrat heroes who will stand up in the Senate and say, ‘I know he’s a Democrat president, but I also know the reading of the Constitution doesn’t allow him to amend or create legislation, and so therefore, even though I support him, I will stand up,’ because we need that.”

Paul’s lawsuit against the NSA was long-planned and made official Wednesday, and the libertarian-leaning Senator said that hundreds of thousands of people had already joined it. The purpose of the class action is to allow a large group of people to collectively take legal action against another party — in this case, “it could include anybody who has a cell phone or anybody who has a land line,” Paul told Hannity.